The present invention relates to a football table and the rotating rods of the football table include an outer tube and an inner tube retractably received in the outer tube so that the rotating rods are operated smoothly.
A conventional football table 10 is shown in FIG. 1, the two long sides 12 of the table 10 have a plurality of parallel rotatable rods 14 and each rod 14 has players 16 connected thereto. A ball on the table 10 is kicked by the players 16 when rotating the rods 14.
The conventional rods 14 have a fixed length and are wider than the table 10 so that they are able to be moved in a direction of the short sides of the table 10 and move the positions of the players 16. However, when moving the rods 14 by pushing the handles 141 of the rods 14, the rear ends 142 of the rods 14 are pushed away from the table 10 and could hit the controllers or persons who stand beside the table 10.
To improve the shortcoming, another conventional structure is shown in FIGS. 2 and 3 and includes an inner tube 22 and an outer tube 24 in which the inner tube 22 is received. The rear end of the inner tube 22 is fixedly connected to a long side 26 of the table and the front end of the outer tube 24 extends through the other long side 26 of the table so that the controllers may hold the outer tubes 24. A plurality of players 27 are connected to the outer tubes 24 and the top of each player 27 is screwed a long bolt 28 downward for being connected to the outer tube 24. When the controllers push or pull the outer tubes 24 along the inner tubes 22, the players 27 are moved and the players 27 kick the ball when rotating the outer tubes 24. By this assembly, the inner tubes 22 will not protrude from the table and hit the controllers.
However, the inner tubes 22 and the outer tubes 24 are thin and circular shaped and there is a tiny gap between the inner tube 22 and the outer tube 24, so that the long bolts 28 often extend into the inner tubes 22 when connecting the players 27 to the outer tubes 24. This will affect the smoothness of the operation of the outer tube 24 movable on the inner tube 22.
Besides, the circular shaped tubes have less structural strength so that the outer tubes tend to be deformed when impacting with objects.
Furthermore, the players are mounted to the outer tubes by a circular hole in the players so that the players have to be fixed with the outer tubes by bolts. However, only one bolt provides a small contact area and the players are easily loosened.
The object of the present invention is to provide a retractable rotating rod and a larger gap is defined between the outer tube and the inner tube so as to prevent the bolt from contacting the inner tubes when connecting the players on the outer tubes.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a retractable rotating rod for a football table wherein the rotating rod has better structural strength.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a retractable rotating rod for a football table wherein the players and the rotating rods are firmly connected with each other so that the players will not loose.
The present invention will be best understood from the following description and accompanying drawings which show, for purposes of illustration only, two preferred embodiments in accordance with the present invention.